Hiroshi Yamauchi, who turned Nintendo into video-game giant, has died
Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo for more than 50 years and led the Japanese company’s transition from traditional playing-card maker to video-game giant, has died. He was 85.
Kyoto-based Nintendo said Yamauchi, who was also known for owning the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball club, died Thursday of pneumonia at a hospital in central Japan.
Yamauchi was Nintendo president from 1949 to 2002, and engineered the company’s global growth, including developing the early Family Computer consoles and Game Boy portables.
Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games as well as the Wii U home console, was founded in 1889.
Reputed as a visionary and among the richest men in Japan, Yamauchi made key moves such as employing the talents of Shigeru Miyamoto, a global star of game design and the brainchild of Nintendo hits such as Super Mario and Donkey Kong.
A dropout of the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo, Yamauchi exhibited a kind of disarming spontaneity rare among Japanese executives, with is raspy voice and tendency to speak informally in his native Kyoto dialect.
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Yamauchi had little interest in baseball, but was approached to buy the Mariners, who may have had to move to Florida without a new backer. The acquisition in 1992 made the Seattle club the first in the major leagues to have foreign ownership. Yamauchi sold the Mariners to Nintendo’s U.S. unit in 2004.
After being succeeded at the helm of Nintendo by Satoru Iwata, Yamauchi stayed on as an advisor, but his role increasingly diminished over the years.
The company has floundered in the last couple of years, hurt by a strong yen and competition from games on smartphones and tablets.
A complete obituary will follow at latimes.com/obituaries.
ALSO:
Eiji Toyoda, 100, scion of Toyota Motor Co.
Kongar-ol Ondar, 51, Tuvan throat singing master
Richard McWilliam, 59, CEO of trading card company Upper Deck
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